DEI Spotlight
When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was finally passed by Congress and signed by the President, I found myself having mixed fillings about it. Not because it is a bad bill, but because history tells us that the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us get leftovers if we are lucky, especially those of us who belong to communities of color. Before we go down this path again, I decided to investigate this legislation in more detail to ascertain whether I should feel hopeful for our communities or not.
According to the Office of the Governor, the bill will provide California:
- Federal-aid highway apportioned programs: $25.3 billion, with $4.2 billion for bridge replacement and repairs
- Improved public transportation: $9.45 billion
- Expansion of an EV charging network: $384 million, plus the opportunity to apply for the $2.5 billion in grant funding dedicated to EV charging
- Broadband coverage across the state: $100 million
- Protection against wildfires: $84 million
- Improvements to water infrastructure and clean drinking water: $3.5 billion
- Infrastructure development for airports: $1.5 billion
So, what does this mean for us as Californians? In general, it means that there is the promise of new jobs, including jobs for folks without college degrees. It’s a good start if those jobs will be available to people of various levels of education. Very often communities of color do not have the same levels of higher education as others. This makes it difficult for members of these communities to find good-paying jobs. The potential for individual advancement by way of these new jobs looks promising.
Better public transportation should help everyone by providing more transportation choices with better routes plus cleaner and environmentally friendlier vehicles. And with the mandate to reach all-electric vehicles in California by 2035, the timing could not be better.
With the pandemic still dominating our daily lives, most of us have moved to cyber choices for our work, our social interactions, and our education methods. Unfortunately, many in poorer communities do not have easy access to the internet or simply cannot afford it. This lack of access has had a severe impact on the children in these communities. As a result, schooling for them, especially during the pandemic, has been essentially inaccessible, placing their lifetime earning power in jeopardy. The promise of affordable internet access portends a better future for all, especially people of color.
More funding for increased and improved wildfire protection, water infrastructure, and airports—all of this means more jobs of varied types and, more importantly, clean drinking water for everyone. The lack of that essential commodity has affected many of our children and adults, especially in communities of color and poor communities. The economic viability of key demographic areas in our state suffers as a result. All this is taking place during a time when most Californians are suffering from a sluggish economic recovery.
In addition to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which establishes how much will be contributed in terms of improvements and jobs, the President’s Build Back Better Plan addresses how these improvements will be implemented to ensure that communities of color are not left out or negatively impacted (e.g., by displacements during highway construction). People in poor communities and communities of color have historically been the first to go when new highways and public easements are planned and implemented. If, in fact, the new law succeeds in ensuring racial equity when expanding and building new and better structures, then we are going in the right direction as a country.
In summary, the new law has the potential to improve our lives by providing the funds necessary to fix our roads and bridges, improve public transportation, make internet readily available to every community, enhance our wildfire protection, and provide clean drinking water, all while remaining cognizant of the impact on the environment and on racial equity.
Our collective futures are looking a little better because of this new law. Time will tell—the road to equity is paved with good intentions.
—L. Peter Zavala
